


grass from a grave

by oriflamme



Series: robots. robots everywhere [10]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Happy Fun Coffin Times with Tailgate, Isolation, Lost Light 7 Spoilers, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-02
Updated: 2017-07-02
Packaged: 2018-11-22 04:38:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11372736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oriflamme/pseuds/oriflamme
Summary: The radiation doesn't kill him, but another six million years alone underground just might.





	grass from a grave

**Author's Note:**

> I live in the hope that the Scavengers will run into the Rod Squad, eventually.

The radiation doesn't kill him.

Hard to tell if the treatment worked, though! 'Cause Tailgate spends at least a couple cycles every time he wakes up from power-saving mode to thrash against the tight confines of the isolation chamber, throwing as much as he can at them when he doesn't have room to sit up or build momentum. But he couldn't dent it at the start, when he first got trapped in here, so baaasically there's no way for him to measure if his strength has faded - he's stripped the paint off his own knuckles and knees and left a thicket of shallow white scratches along the ceiling, but he doesn't have anything to compare it to down here.

Three months for treatment, three months for decontamination. Kaput said the radiation would take care of all Tailgate's energy needs, but Fangry (what a dumb name!) threw a spanner in _that_ already terribawful plan. Tailgate climbed down here already scared and wailing on the inside at the thought of being buried alive again, and now -

Six million years. _Six million years,_ Fangry says, and as Tailgate stares at the ceiling - or sometimes the wall, or the floor, if he feels like mixing things up for the day - he can't fight the crawling, sinking sensation in his tanks. There's no way Fangry could have known Tailgate spent six million years under the Mitteous Plateau. Haha! That would be crazy! Bookending the horribly short best years of his life with six million year chunks of being forgotten and alone, deep beneath the surface, in the _dark -_

_Note to self: Don't panic. Don't panic, don't panic, find your calm place. Think happy thoughts. Everything's really, really, super fine - ridiculously fine, as a matter of fact! - and - and -_

Y'know, the whole internal pep talk thing didn't work the first time around, either. Tailgate rolls over in his coffin, and checks his internal readouts with his visor half-dimmed. His HUD hasn't started insulting him yet, but all it tells him is that he isn't injured enough to trigger a damage report, that his chronometer is functioning normally, and that his fuel levels are hovering around 75% percent. They've held steady since the radiation filtered through the chamber, even if it made no noticeable difference for his stupid spark, but Tailgate can't recharge down here without running the risk of ripping his spark out the old-fashioned way. Can't refuel, either - Kaput didn't pack him a stash of rations, which kinda sucks. Power saving mode slows down all of his processes and frame functions, but eventually, once he hits 10%, he'll start passing out intermittently. At 5%, starvation mode will set in. Cybertronians can survive a long time in a starvation coma, as long as nothing else damages them.

And Tailgate will be aware of every second of it. Which kinda sucks. A lot. It doesn't actually make him feel any better to know the medical details, right now. He got the run down on all this stuff from Ratchet years ago, to explain how he survived millions of years in a cave while the war raged over his head.

And he doesn't trust his chronometer as far as he can throw it - which isn't very far, since he's boxed up in a tomb too small for him to even transform in. A while back he borrowed one of Whirl's clock things just…in case. But a fat lot of good that does him when it's still back in his habsuite on the Lost Light, zooming away at physics-breaking speeds, while Tailgate's buried down here, alone. It's just him and his _abnormal_ spark and the steady, low whir of his vents and the minibot-sized chamber boxing him in.

He's not freaking out. _He's not._ Obviously.

No, he freaks out the second his chronometer ticks over the six month mark. That's when the denial fizzles and dies in his spark, and he realizes that Kaput didn't tell anyone where to find him before dying. Either no one has noticed Tailgate's gone, or nobody is left on the planet who _cares_ and he really is right back where he started.

He's nobody at all.

It's a waste of what energy he has left, but Tailgate batters himself against the ceiling and floor of the isolation chamber as the panic eats up his vision in a bright, blinding wave.

-

At least the radiation doesn't cycle through again, once it finishes filtering out of the sterile air. The tingly sensation of three months' worth of exposure was more than enough. Fangry must've just extended the length of the decontamination period, Tailgate thinks, dully, once he claws his way out of the blind, screaming terror. He can only panic and pass out so many times before numbness sets in, but that's okay! Now he just gets to feel the slow chainsaw grind of pain and self-loathing and heartache as they knot together through his chest. Clutching the vial of innermost energon hurts, but Tailgate can't bring himself to unwind it from his hand. The soft pink-purple the only thing left to light up the dark chamber, now that he's dimmed his biolights and visor to their lowest setting. It ebbs and then brightens again whenever Tailgate turns it over in his hands.

He pushed him away. He made sure it would sting, too, because Cyclonus is the most stubborn person ever forged. But if he didn't leave, he wouldn't be _safe._ Safe from Tailgate, and whatever's so wrong with him. Tailgate changed, and now, here in the dark, it feels like all that change did was hurt the person he loved the most. Stubborn, stern, stoic Cyclonus, who probably would've stayed with him right up until one of Tailgate's fits killed him and never say a word. All this time he hid all the damage Tailgate _must_ have inflicted, which means he probably replaced and repaired inessential parts of his frame to do it, and if he had just _said_ something for once instead of protecting Tailgate from everything -!

On the one hand, it's probably better this way. On the other hand, they argued instead of talking, for the last time, and that's the last memory Tailgate will have of him. Ever.

He curls up tighter around the vial.

His internal readout was right all along. He is _such_ an idiot.

-

Tailgate's transformation cog aches from disuse, so he turns over to face the scarred ceiling - or maybe it's the floor? He's lost all sense of up and down in the featureless coffin, and gravity feels like a tenuous thing to trust, just like his chronometer - and expends more energy beating himself against the walls with resounding _bang_ s that hammer through the chamber and reverberate back through his struts with tank-turning intensity. Maybe he _is_ turned around and trying to kick his way into the center of the planet but a) he's not sure that he cares, and b) hey, it's hollow! Worth a shot, right?

He nearly tears a leg off when he turns too forcefully and the limb catches on the right wall, straining the transformation seam. Tailgate yelps and snaps back to normal, still aching.

Maybe he could pour Cyclonus's innermost energon into his own spark casing. Ratchet isn't here to stop him, no matter how terrible the idea might be, medically. The last Tailgate saw it, his own innermost energon turned gross and curdled; mixing Cyclonus's aged energon in with it would just ruin it. But then he'd always have Cyclonus with him, and he wouldn't have to worry about accidentally falling into recharge and smashing the vial in his fitful sleep, as his energy levels slowly begin to decrease.

It's a dumb thought.

But it's been a year.

-

His chronometer informs Tailgate it has been one year and three months since Kaput sealed him in here and Fangry extended his time. And hey. He sure remembers Fangry now! That is definitely a thing.

A year is barely anything; it's also an agonizingly long time to be alone, and to _feel_ it. Plenty of time for Tailgate's panic and pain to sink deep into his frame, like background radiation, while he thinks about everything else. All the Decepticons he killed, and all the people he tossed around, and the way he brushed off all of Cyclonus's caution and counsel because he was finally strong enough to protect him instead of the other way around. It felt exhilarating - it was tearing Cyclonus apart - it turned Tailgate into someone he doesn't recognize now, in hindsight.

It burned through his energon faster and faster, depleting his reserves faster than he could keep up as his strength grew and grew. He'd almost forgotten about that. But the out of control acceleration of his super strength and belligerence seems to have stopped; his energy levels don't plummet out of nowhere, though it's been a while since he last slept or ate. So maybe Kaput did fix _something_ , in the end. Tailgate can't tell. He's pretty useless about this kind of stuff.

Self-loathing, though. If Rung ever held a contest, Tailgate could cream anyone who entered. Venting a sigh, Tailgate lifts his head and lets it thunk back against the floor. In a bit, he'll probably try to knee the ceiling half-sparkedly, but he's just going through the motions now. Patches of bald metal on the joints of his legs and his fingers glint sharply in the half-light of Cyclonus's innermost energon (and if Tailgate looks away, he can pretend it’s the glow of his spark, instead, like he's not alone down here -)

He forces himself to stop that train of thought, before it can make his visor blur and spit sparks as the lump of pain lodges like a cold stone in his chest. He - can't. He just can't.

They never came back, and as hard as it is to accept that no one cares enough to look for him, it's harder still to wonder if maybe there's no one _left_ to care about him. Surely by now _someone_ noticed he was gone - though it's pretty easy to think that maybe Tailgate just fell back into obscurity, where a second-rate waste disposal unit always belonged - but maybe they're all dead. Maybe there's nothing above him but the flowers and the empty monuments to the dead; the earth already swallowed Tailgate whole. It's probably a beautiful day outside, and all of his friends are dead.

"Please let me out," Tailgate says to the four walls. His vocalizer crackles and rasps, little more than a pathetic whisper. Cyclonus would tell him to speak up louder, from deeper in the chest - a good old Cybertronian ballad would help pass the time, right about now. Hahaha!

It's not funny. "Please don't leave me alone."

The transmission speaker, dented and bent almost in two in the upper corner of the room, crackles to life. [Uh…hang on, c…ld you re…that?]

Tailgate sits bolt upright.

Having slammed his head into the ceiling at full force, he promptly passes out.

-

When he wakes up, he nearly sits up again. Whoops. This time he checks himself before he does more than conk his forehead against the box - augh. Desperately, he drags himself as close to the speaker as he can, trying to see if he damaged it while unconscious. It looks intact, but all he can do for a long minute is stare, trying to work himself up to say something. He's been down here so long that he could have just hallucinated someone talking - that kind of stuff happens, right? When you're alone for too long. Which would be worse: that he hallucinated that voice earlier, or that someone _was_ up there, but then he knocked himself out and they _left -_

Tailgate reaches out and touches the speaker, braced for nothing. "Hello? Is someone there?" he says, and his voice sounds just as shaky with disuse as before. For a long, horrible second, the isolation chamber echoes with silence, and he slumps back against the floor.

[I KNEW IT!] Someone yells over the intercom, and then starts cackling with laughter that bounces off the walls. Tailgate flinches, then brightens his visor all the way as dawning, desperate hope overrides everything else. [Get over here, you guys! I told you someone was mumbling over here!]

"Please. Please, you have to help me!" Once Tailgate starts talking, he can't seem to stop, even as the person on the other end of the line keeps chattering. Their voice sounds distant, like they're walking away and _oh no oh no oh no_. Between his own babbling and the panicked need to _explain,_ Tailgate can't process it. "There should be a terminal - this dumb Fangry guy messed with the settings! I'm gonna be stuck down here for six million years! Please, don't leave!"

[Oh, c'mon C…nkcase, just go g… Krok really qui- Down where?] The voice snaps into focus like the person is speaking into the mic again, rather than leaving. Tailgate still can't relax. [What, like, in the center of the planet? A hollow planet would be interesting!]

The voice starts to ramble about hollow planets and their merits. Tailgate gives it a minute, before impatience gets the better of him. "No, I'm buried down here!" he says, talking loudly over the person on the other end of the line. "Er, I mean, the planet _is_ hollow, too, but I'm only like thirty meters down. Kaput - this medic - he sealed me in, and now he's dead, and I can't get out, and -"

[Whoa, slo...own. Signal keeps cutting out.] A grunt and a burst of static crackle through the speaker and fill the isolation chamber with white noise for a klik while Tailgate waits. His frame feels exhausted and jittery at the same time with the effort it takes not to start flinging himself against the ceiling again. [Someone buggered up this terminal pretty good...Thought it was just a hunk of junk, but, y'know, hunks of junk are kind of our specialty.]

No, actually, Tailgate doesn't know - but he's not about to argue with the first person he's heard in ages, and who might be the only one who can get him out of here. Even though it sounds like Fangry trashed the control terminal before leaving… There still has to be a way. _Has_ to be. Tailgate doesn't know if he _wants_ to survive another six million years in the dark, to live to see all his friends are long gone and the world's changed into something unrecognizable all over again. "You've gotta fix the controls and let me out. I was only supposed to be down here for six months. Please." His ancient old vocalizer creaks, and Tailgate resets it with a gulp. "How did you even find me?"

[Oh, just scrounging around. The usual. We got a weird transmission from this sector a while back - pretty morbid stuff - and after we swung by Earth we decided to meander over this way. Krok's thumb picked up a buncha Decepticon signals.] The voice pauses, and then goes quiet. A series of indistinct sounds crackles over the mic, as though someone is stomping around. Not being able to see what's going on makes Tailgate tense up further, because any second now _this_ person could be killed just as abruptly as Kaput. If Fangry's still wandering around…

They come back, and Tailgate shudders with relief. [So we thought hey, that place looks nice and shiny and ominous! Whatev. And came down to see if there was anything good to grab.] Really, really loud typing sounds clack through the speakers, along with another frustrated mutter. Then the voice brightens again. [Between you and me, Krok's disappointed nobody was alive here, so I think you'll really make his day! He's on this big kick about helping people. Which is a nice plan, even if he's taking _forever_ to get over here.]

The voice keeps rattling off more and more, and Tailgate interrupts because otherwise he'll never get a word in edgewise. "Wait. Nobody's alive up there?" _Either they forgot you or they're dead_ has haunted him for months, and...No. He'd almost rather be forgotten. Hopefully - hopefully they just left, and the dead people are the Decepticons killed in the fight. "But some of my - I mean, there were people still here," he says, fidgeting restlessly. He props himself up in the corner under the speaker as best he can, twining the chain in between his hands until it forms a metal knot, then lets it unspool with a _clank._ "I don't think all of them planned to leave, even if transport came to pick them up..." 

[Nah. It's dead up here. Some pretty good loot on all these bodies and probably down in the basement of the building, and I think Grimsy's sniffing himself out some new plating. Good times.]

"Oh. I see." Tailgate shudders again and rests his arms on his bent legs, watching the flicker and play of purple light as the innermost energon swishes back and forth in a tiny circle. "How'd you find me specifically, though? I remember those transmissions -" It feels like the fight against the DJD was centuries ago, not just a year "- but I figured that if no one came to dig me up before now, there…must've been something covering the entrance. I mean. Unless they just didn't care."

The voice sounds vaguely affronted, but chatters on regardless. [Well, I mean - we're not THE worst at this. We scavenge and find stuff people try to bury all the time! Lotsa fresh dirt scraped over a door with a really suspicious patch of flowers that don't match the rest of the planet? That's amateur hour, right there. 'Course, then half the time we wind up in some bizarre situation because we dig up something that breaks reality a little bit, but eh. Stuff happens.] Then, after a significant pause, the person adds, [You're not gonna transport us to a parallel universe where we're all evil and Crankcase has an organic goatee and Fulcrum's wearing glittery sashes, right?]

Wow, that's an incredibly specific mental image! Tailgate doesn't even know what these people look like - they could be organics themselves for all he knows - and it's still…uh, an interesting thing to picture in his head. "...Probably not," he says, after a long pause of his own.

[Cool, cool. So like, what are you, anyway? Name, size, species, job, faction - whatever.]

Huh. Maybe he'll skip faction right now, since he doesn't really want to put his foot in it if the people above are somehow Decepticons. Tailgate doesn't know anything about organic politics, really, so who knows if there are other species out there with factions and stuff. "Oh! I'm Tailgate! Uh, Cybertronian, and - and, er…I'm a -"

He panics. He doesn't even know why; his processor just…totally stalls out, and he blurts out the first thing that comes to mind. "Bomb disposal! I'm a bomb disposal expert!"

 _Smooth_. Nothing like an old lie popping to the top of your head when you could just, y'know, tell the truth. Groaning, Tailgate bangs his head back against the wall and grinds the vial of energon into his forehelm for good measure. He knows better. _He knows better_ , and the thought of what Cyclonus would say makes something squirm and tighten in his tanks.

A second voice abruptly crackles over the speaker. [What did that thing just say?!] the new person asks, sounding both offended and too apathetic to really care all at the same time.

[Oh, that's hilarious,] the first voice says, gleefully.  [We _definitely_ need to get you out of there now, just so you can see the look on Fulcrum's face.]

"That's not actually my function," Tailgate says really fast, before he can lose his nerve. "It's actually waste disposal. Sorry."

[Yeah, wait a little before telling him that. It's too funny.] The person hums a little, quietly enough that it's mostly swallowed by the static on the line and the sound of typing, and doesn't add anything else for a long while. Tailgate swallows, as cold, jittering rush ebbs out of him in the wake of telling the truth. This…whatever happens, he's not gonna get out of here and start off the same way he did on the Lost Light. Not this time around.

The kliks count off on his chronometer; Tailgate still doesn't trust it fully, but then again, he's still not sure whether he trusts this whole scenario not to be a hallucination brought on by his screaming brain module. He shifts his weight a little, the metal of the isolation chamber scraping under him.

By the time he realizes he forgot to ask the person's designation and all that, an awkward amount of time has passed. Opening and closing his hand on the chain again to test his strength a little - he just can't _tell_ , and he doesn't dare apply enough pressure to break the chain - Tailgate squirms one last time and glances back up at the speaker. "You've been quiet for a while. Is everything okay? Um. Also, what's your name?"

No response. His right arm trembles uncontrollable with an instant twinge of panic. Tailgate forces himself not to panic (happy place, happy place), and adds, "Hello?!" He can't keep the edge of desperation out of his voice.

After another terrifying second, the voice returns. [Yeah, geez, don't panic. Look, honestly, I have no idea how to get this hatch to open. It keeps flashing red and giving me some scrap about decontamination protocols. And it's Misfire.]

No. Tailgate lets the vial dangle from its chain and mashes his palms against the sides of his helm, trying to hold his throbbed head together. "It was done after the six months were up! I told you, Fangry changed the settings," he repeats, angrily. "Is there really no way to just make it open sooner?!"

Misfire, though. Where has he heard that name before? Tailgate's 90% sure now that he's dealing with another Cybertronian, but he can't place why the name's so familiar. He must have heard it ages and ages ago…

[I don't even know. I'm gonna try the old-fashioned way.] Misfire's voice turns muffled again as they turn away from the terminal again. [Uh - wait, hang on - Spinister, I'm gonna grab Grimlock and see if he can pry that hatch open -] Then the voice cuts off completely.

"Who else is there? Wait! Don't leave!" Tailgate splutters, his visor flashing as he whips his head around to stare at the speaker in terror.

[huh.]

A third voice breaks the silence instead of Misfire's. Tailgate waits, the struts of his arm still twinging, strung tight with tension. "Who are you?" he asks. He hates this, hates the massive part of him that can't help but panic at the thought of being alone and helpless down here.

[i took a look. this is pretty easy to fix.]

Tailgate blinks his visor. Then he has to do it again, as his tense arm goes totally slack and he nearly falls over sideway. "Really?"

[yeah, you just make it open early. duh.] Over the line, Tailgate can make out even heavier clacks and pounding sounds as someone does terrible violence to a keyboard.

…Kaput said the chamber couldn't be opened before the protocols said so, even by Kaput himself - how is this guy making it happen? Tailgate hears three huge bangs, like someone's literally punching a fist into the keyboard, and he nervously clears his vocalizer. "I thought Misfire couldn't open it early because of the decontamination protocols, though? Kaput said the same thing," he says, when what he _wants_ to do is scream at whoever this is to stop breaking the terminal more. He hears the distinct whir of rotor blades firing up and chopping down against metal with a terrible, metallic squeal, and Tailgate squeaks in abject horror at the thought of what's going on up there.

[what good is a guy named after broken stuff? just delete the decontamination protocols. easy.]

The chamber flashes green around Tailgate, so suddenly and so different from the dim blue and purple light he's grown used to that Tailgate sits frozen for a whole klik as the chamber whines, and then -

The ceiling slides open.

Sunlight pours in through the shaft to the surface, where the outside hatch has popped open.

Tailgate stares blankly up while his visor rapidly resets itself and shifts to accommodate the sudden flood of light. For a dazzled second, he thinks he sees familiar frames up above - Chromedome and Rewind and Ratchet -

Then his visor stops fritzing out, and someone he doesn't know squints down at him with red optics. The sun casts shadows across most of the mech's front, but Tailgate thinks he's mostly shades of purple, with a spikier head than Ratchet ever had.

"Spin - what did you _do_?!" Misfire yells, his voice drawing closer. It sounds weird, without the constant static of the transmission feed, but clearer. Then a second mech skids to a halt and peers down the hole with avid red eyes, his wings flared out to either side so that the light glints off two Decepticon symbols on a magenta frame. "Oh. Uh. I guess that'll do it." He waves down at Tailgate with a smirk. "Climb out, loser, let's get a look atcha!" he calls down the chute.

"Just, er. One second!" Tailgate calls back, one hand clapping over his chest as he ducks away really quick. When he looks, though, he can't make out the Autobot symbol on his chest anymore; he hasn't recharged, but with all his thrashing and shaking over the past year, he's done a good job of scraping off the symbol and leaving his chassis covered in ragged scrape marks.

Well. It'll do. It figures that he'd come out with something to hide, just like last time. A messed up waste disposal decal, and now a messed up badge…

Tailgate vents hard, one last time, the sterile atmo of the isolation chamber tinged with fresh air pouring down from above. It smells like spark flowers and dirt.

At least this time he doesn't need a hand to climb out of here. Tailgate stands up straight on cramped legs, his crimped up fuel lines and cables screaming at him, and hoists himself up toward the sun.


End file.
